Client

Overview

With their mural “Face Time” Various & Gould have translated their signature style of silkscreen and collage aesthetics in 2015 for the first time into such a dimension. The 350 m² façade painting was created in cooperation with the architecture office roedig . schop and is located on the former border section, where the Berlin Wall was located, between the districts Mitte and Kreuzberg.
This mural belongs to a series of collages of the same name.

For these collaged character studies, the art duo cuts up a wide variety of faces into individual parts. The artists then stagger these elements and merge them into new likenesses in a “glitchy” way.

With their Dadaist patchwork identities Various & Gould subvert common beauty ideals and celebrate human diversity. Even if their characters are fictitious, they appear more authentic than many of the glossy faces from beauty shots represented in the daily media.

measurements: 3767,37 square foot = 350 m²
Heinrich-Heine-Straße 36

Goals

The idea for this mural is, that together, these individual elements form a collective face that represents the diversity of the neighborhood.

In 2023 the mural “Face Time” in Berlin was at risk of being painted over by an advertising mural agency. With a lot of solidarity from the online community and neighborhood, we managed to safe the painting and it is still there to give a face to the area.

Process

The building was still under construction when we were involved and in close cooperation with the architectural office, we were able to choose background color and plaster structure. roedig . schop also organized a color sponsorship by the company sto.

We have developed 3 sketches for this particular wall and the assembly group of owners, guided by the architect, has voted by majority for this image.
In weeklong manual labor, with a lot of friends and helpers involved, we managed to paint this piece dot by dot.